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Mugello (Italy) (AFP)
British Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton was victorious in the Tuscan Grand Prix, the ninth stage of the Formula One World Championship that was held on Sunday at the Mugello circuit, after a race whose main title was red not by the celebration of Ferrari from the 1000th race, but for the raising of the red flag and the race suspended twice.
Hamilton preceded his Mercedes colleague Valtteri Bottas and the Thai Alexander Albon (Red Bull), who took the podium for the first time in his career, taking advantage of the numerous casualties, among which his Dutch colleague Max Verstappen and the French Pierre Gasly ( Alpha Tauri), who won last Sunday’s race at Monza.
It also marked the point of the fastest lap of the race, which enters the Formula One calendar for the first time, with the aim of trying to save what can be saved from a late start to the season, and many of its stages were Canceled by the new Corona virus outbreak, Hamilton moved one step closer to his seventh world title after falling away from the lead by 55 points from Teammate Bottas (190 vs. 135).
He also became the British champion with his 90th career victory, one win from equaling the record number of victories recorded on behalf of German legend Michael Schumacher.
The Brits described what happened in the race and victory after all this chaos, saying: “It was a bit dizzy. It was very difficult today,” adding to Sky Sports that it was very difficult to maintain the focus that I needed in light of the relaunching. Race”.
Although the crowd was able to return to the circuits in a maximum number of three thousand, and the many casualties that affected eight drivers, Ferrari could not adequately celebrate its thousandth race in the championship, as Charles Leclerc of Monaco and the German Sebastian Vettel finished the race in the eighth and tenth, respectively. (The latter will move up to ninth place as a result of Kimi Raikkonen’s fine, adding 5 seconds to his final time.)
Chaos was the title at the Mugello circuit from the first lap that marked the end of Verstappen’s race, who finished third and was already suffering from a problem with his engine, which caused a bad start, and was the winner last Sunday of the first race of his career at the Italian circuit of Monza.
The cars drove behind the safety car for six laps while Vettel and Raikkonen repaired the damage to their car in the accident on the first lap.
And when the race started again at the end of the seventh lap after the safety car started, the second largest and most spectacular accident occurred, resulting in another 6 cars leaving.
The accident occurred when the drivers at the bottom of the table got ahead of leader Bottas, who snatched first place from his colleague Hamilton at the time of the first start, and collided with the cars in front of them.
Bottas caused this accident when he was maneuvering to warm up his tires before the race started again, and this event resulted in the stoppage of the race for forty minutes and the withdrawal of Spanish Carlos Sainz (McLaren), Italian Antonio Jovanasi (Alfa Romeo ), Danish Kevin Magnuson (Haas) and Canadian Nicolas Latifi. (Williams) and the Frenchman Esteban Ocon (Renault).
It turned out that Jovanasi collided with Magnuson and Latifi, which also led to the overthrow of Scines.
– “Go before we go” –
In a nervous message full of blasphemies, Frenchman Roman Grojan saw that what happened was stupid on the part of the person in front, referring to Bottas, and added: “Do you want to kill us or what? This is the worst I have seen” .
Bottas asked his Mercedes team what happened after the second launch, and James Fowles, the team’s strategy engineer, replied: “We think some Valtteri took off before our launch and collided with each other.”
After the third start after a 40-minute break, Hamilton managed to regain first place from his colleague Bottas and behind them Leclerc de Monaco, who soon began to retire due to tire problems.
And things did not end there, as the safety car had to enter lap 44 after a severe accident with Canadian Lance Stroll (Racing Point). Drivers were quick to report that the race had been stopped to replace tires, but race observers returned and made the decision on lap 46 to stop the race a second time. To allow complete removal of the crashed vehicle.
The drivers returned to the race again with a third start, with Hamilton staying ahead of Bottas and behind them was Australian Daniel Ricciardo (Renault), who faced fierce competition from Albon, at a time when Leclerc lost. two places to Raikkonen and Grogan and dropped to 10th out of 12 drivers.
Albon managed to overtake Ricciardo on lap 51, while the competition for first place between Hamilton and Bottas intensified after the latter managed to narrow the gap to his teammate a lot, but the defending champion kept his composure and eventually added. another victory over his record, his sixth for it. season.
© 2020 AFP
